EA - Riccitiello, CEO, sees DLC as a way to combat piracy

December 9th, 2009, 21:51

Kotaku spoke to Jon Riccitiello, CEO of EA about how EA future might be. Apparently, he spoke about DLC as a way to generate income from both the second hand market as well as from people who don't pay for their games - via DLC, that is.

Some of the people buying this DLC are not people who bought the game in a new shrink-wrapped box. That could be seen as a dark cloud, a mass of gamers who play a game without contributing a penny to EA. But around that cloud Riccitiello identified a silver lining: "There's a sizable pirate market and a sizable second sale market and we want to try to generate revenue in that marketplace," he said, pointing to DLC as a way to do it.

Do you agree with Riccitiello's statement? Is DLC a good way to get people to pay for games? More information.

About the second-hand market - well, a new way to squeeze out the money from people who often don't have the money to buy the games in the first place ?

To formulate it heretically: Take it from the poor and give it to the rich ?

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
To formulate it heretically: Take it from the poor and give it to the rich ?

Then don't buy it! The DLC is all frippery around the edges and has little impact on the main game.

Provided the main game represents good value (which is a matter of individual opinion), I can't see the problem in trying to generate revenue from second-hand buyers and maybe a few pirates (probably unlikely, but who knows).

Second hand market - maybe. But DLC a solution anti- piracy? Not likely. Not this century anyway.
I dislike the whole DLC crap completely, but what can you do? Everyone is trying to do something to squeeze more money from the players and blame it on piracy and rental shops. Pathetic…
Most bulletproof anti-piracy games: MMOs.

NOTE: Several readers have commented that PC-based DLC is indeed pirated by some gamers. While this may be the case, I believe Riccitiello's statement that DLC can't be pirated may at least be accurate for console DLC (He hadn't specificed).

Interesting, that didn't occur to me.

But in the PC world, I was thinking that due to the DL in DLC, a company might get away with a more strict, online login kind of thing just for the DLC, something harsher than would be acceptable for the main release. Because obviously you should be online if you're getting DLC, and that means forcing activation checks or logins are less onerous. People would still complain incessantly, but with less basis.

Actual logins and/or unique CD-keys are indeed the only way to defeat piracy. I don't begrudge companies using them.

Seems to me that the headline is a little bit misleading. Riccitiello doesn't actually see DLC as a way to "combat piracy". He's just saying that they want a piece of the huge "free games market" (= pirated games). EA has identified that market as a possible source of revenue and they see DLC as a tool to generate some revenue from that source. He also says that he wouldn't mind if some pirates would convert to legitimate consumers in the process but in no way is he saying anywhere that DLC could or should be used to "combat piracy". It is clear that he regards DLC as an incentive to buy games, not as a countermeasure against piracy.

DLC won't combat Piracy and actual logins can be removed by a crack and the only kind of serial that could combat piracy would be human generated serials which would require hiring a bunch of people to create serial numbers which would be really expensive to do. Maybe making an mmo single player rpg would work as long as most of the base code is streamed but that wouldn't entirely work since anything that is streamed can be captured by a user with the right knowledge or recreated based on the information that isn't being streamed but it would be more difficult.

There is one other way that may work and that would be entirely encrypting the game and the only way to get the data decrypted is by logging into the game online and then the code is sent encrypted to your computer to decrypt the game files. This would have to be sent periodically and still wouldn't prevent full access to the files since a person could make a program to get the currently decrypted files.

Take DAO as an example. They actually shipped every copy of that game with a free piece of DLC - Shale.

At first glance that seems silly. I mean, if you're giving it away with every copy of your game, then why call it a DLC - why not just include it in the game to begin with? Certainly some (probably many) people would say that.

I guess the intention was to make having a legal copy of the game slightly more attractive. You can pirate the game, and you can easily play a pirated version, but then you won't get this cool and useful character. It probably won't do that much to the final piracy rate for DAO - but it just *might* make the game sell a few extra copies.

Of course, that idea breaks down completely if it's actually possible (and just as easy) to download pirated versions of the game with the DLC included.

The DLC's are always available on the filesharing sites just like regular titles. What instead DLC's have to offer, according to me, is a way for the developer to get more money from paying customers than they normally would, and I am fine with that, especially for a large scale RPG.

It's also a way to get a game "finished" even if they had to release it a bit early.
The best DLC's I know of is the third and fourth one for Fallout 3 and the one for Icewind Dale (Trials of the Luremaster).

— Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind. - John F Kennedy
An eye for an eye, and soon the whole world is blind. - Mahatma Gandhi
The world is my country. To do good is my religion. My mind is my own church. This simple creed is all we need to enjoy peace on earth. - Thomas Paine

I can't fault them for trying different things myself. Might not work, pirates might still crack on like that utter wankers they are, but at least they're experimenting with different business models that might help.

In regards PC games there is no pirate market. A fact they can't seem to get through their ten inch thick skulls. There is a console games pirate market. Pirate console games are available in literal markets where cash is exchanged. This is not the case for PC games. 99.99999r%* of all PC pirate downloaders had no intention of paying for the game in any shape, form, or price, and, from the consumer perspective, no money is exchanged.

* Scientific survey from the University of Pulledoutamyass. However, the anecdotal evidence bears this out.

Originally Posted by Cassius
In regards PC games there is no pirate market. A fact they can't seem to get through their ten inch thick skulls. There is a console games pirate market. Pirate console games are available in literal markets where cash is exchanged. This is not the case for PC games. 99.99999r%* of all PC pirate downloaders had no intention of paying for the game in any shape, form, or price, and, from the consumer perspective, no money is exchanged.

* Scientific survey from the University of Pulledoutamyass. However, the anecdotal evidence bears this out.

Unsubstantiated bullshit.

If we ignore that we can't know - like you, I'd certainly argue that a LOT of current pirates would be paying for the games they obtain illegally if they had no other way of playing them.